TODAY'S BIBLE VERSE
Memorize this Verse: (Cover the verse text and using just the first letters of each word try to recite the entire passage.)
9. T L I N S C H P A S M C S B I L T U W N W T A S P B T A S C T R
“Not slack”: That is, not loitering or late (Gal 4:4; Titus 2:13; Heb. 6:18; 10:23, 37; Rev. 19:11).
“Longsuffering to us-ward”: This refers to those whom the Lord has chosen and will call to complete the redeemed, i.e., the “any”. Since the whole passage is about God’s destroying the wicked, His patience is not so He can save all of them, but so that He can receive all His own. He can’t be waiting for everyone to be saved, since the emphasis is that He will destroy the world and the ungodly.
Those who do perish and go to hell, go because they are depraved and worthy only of hell and have rejected the only remedy, Jesus Christ. Not because they were created for hell and pre-determined to go there.
The path to damnation is the path of a non-repentant heart; it is the path of one who rejects the person and provision of Jesus Christ and hold on to sin (Isa. 55:1; Jer. 13:17; Ezek. 18:32; Matthew 11:28; 23:37; Luke 13:3; John 3:16; 8:21, 24; 1 Tim. 2:3-4; Rev. 22:17).
“That all should come to repentance”: “All” (“you”, “any”), must refer to all who are God’s people who will come to Christ to make up the full number of the people of God. The reason for the delay in Christ’s coming and the attendant judgments is not because He is slow to keep His promise, or because He wants to judge more of the wicked, or because He is impotent in the face of wickedness.
He delays His coming because He is patient and desires the time for His people to repent.
God is “not willing that any should perish” clearly expresses desire for the salvation of all who will trust in Him. Salvation is equated here with “repentance.”
“Not slack concerning his promise”: God is not late in consummating this age, since to Him it is but a brief span of time, but in His longsuffering, He continues His plan to save the lost. In patience, He allows time for people to repent, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Every promise the Lord made will be kept; with no exceptions. Whatever He promised, He will do. It may seem to us as if it is a long time coming, but the little time each of us wait is nothing compared to all of eternity.
The only reason the Lord has not already come back, is because He wants all that will come to come, to be saved. We have only to look at the numerous times God forgave the Israelites (on their way to the Promised Land), to know just how longsuffering He is.
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